"So hot. I don't want to go to school."
"Listen to you. And in winter you'd want to go?"
"Somebody go suggest to the principal that we switch to online classes. I guarantee I'll study hard at home." Zhao Zhuo made the pledge as if swearing an oath.
"Give it a rest. Study hard at home? Yesterday your summer homework was copied from Zhou You's secondhand assignment."
The students grumbled their way into the classroom. They had walked from home to school with their bags on their backs first thing in the morning. Their whole backs were soaked, their clothes stuck to them, and the slightest movement was miserable.
"Huh?" One student stepped into the classroom and sensed something off.
He backed out, then went in again.
"Eh?"
"What are you doing?" Zhao Zhuo was puzzled.
"The classroom's so cool!" the student said, excited.
As if Columbus had discovered the New World.
The moment he had entered just now, there had been a bone-piercing chill. He had thought it was an illusion, which was why he went in a second time.
"The classroom, cool? You've hallucinated from the heat." Zhao Zhuo walked in. Very soon the scorn on his face vanished, replaced by deep astonishment.
As if a native of the New World had discovered Columbus.
Cool was hardly the word. It was cold enough to make a person shiver.
The instant he entered, he actually shuddered. A chill ran up his back, and the hairs on his body stood on end, as if some terrifying presence had fixed its gaze on him.
The bone-piercing chill soon faded, leaving only a faint coolness welling up from deep inside.
"Did they install air-conditioning?" Zhao Zhuo thought the school was remarkably reliable—make a wish on the first day, and it came true on the second.
Unfortunately, he looked all around and saw no air conditioner. And this coolness was not quite the same as the coolness of air-conditioning.
"Is it an illusion? Why does it feel so eerie?"
It reminded him of the haunted house at an amusement park: running with a ghost at his heels, the soles of his feet gone cold.
"What's going on? How did the classroom suddenly get cool?" Zhao Zhuo asked his deskmate as he dug his books out.
His deskmate shook his head. Every student shared the same puzzlement.
"Strange. Is it haunted?"
"Zhou You, do you know why?" Zhao Zhuo asked Zhou You, who sat at the desk behind.
"No idea." Zhou You's eyes were clear, yet an unaccountable smile showed in their depths, which left Zhao Zhuo quite baffled.
The change in the classroom was entirely thanks to Nuomi.
Zhou You had guessed right. The old dormitory building was gloomy and cold because Nuomi was there. If Nuomi was invited into the classroom, the classroom would turn cool as well.
When Zhou You had invited her last night to come live there, she had not hesitated much, and agreed readily.
Zhou You figured the old dormitory building had simply been too boring. Nuomi had found it dull and had long wanted a change of place. His invitation had come at just the right time, so she had come out.
"I know the reason." Chu Xiaoyao claimed the credit of her own accord. "With a trifling exercise of my arts, I went to the old dormitory building and caught a female ghost to bring back!"
Zhao Zhuo gave a dry laugh. Only a ghost would believe that.
Who in Class Three didn't know Chu Xiaoyao had chuunibyou? No one found it strange anymore.
At those words Nuomi stamped her foot in anger. She felt the phrasing was a blow to her dignity, and corrected Chu Xiaoyao. "What do you mean, caught and brought back? I didn't want to stay in the old dormitory building anymore. I came over on my own!"
In the past, Nuomi would long since have blown a cold wind onto the back of Chu Xiaoyao's neck. But after one trip into Chu Xiaoyao's inner world, a shadow had been left on her mind, and she didn't dare.
Seeing that Chu Xiaoyao could not hear a word she said, Nuomi had no choice but to turn to Zhou You. She poked him. "Hey, you tell her off."
By comparison, Nuomi felt Zhou You was easier to get along with.
Although he had come right up and punched her without another word, he had later explained that it was all a misunderstanding, apologized with sincere earnestness for a good long while, and warmly invited her to move here to live.
A good living person.
Chu Xiaoyao, by contrast, had used a secret art to slip into an inner world, and there turned out to be nothing she feared. That showed how unfathomable she was. A person like that looked dangerous at a glance. Best to stay away.
Zhou You poked Chu Xiaoyao in turn. "All right, all right, that's enough. The female ghost is angry."
Zhao Zhuo sighed. Chu Xiaoyao was a beauty, no question, but her mind worked differently from ordinary people's. Talk to her too much, and you were easily influenced.
Zhou You was a classic example. Look—in the end he hadn't held out against Chu Xiaoyao's contamination. His reason had been eaten away.
Zhao Zhuo did not dwell on why it had turned cool. Whatever the reason, cool was enough.
This was the first ghost Zhou You had ever seen, and he was especially curious about Nuomi. Yesterday had been rushed; there had been no time to learn more.
"All I know is that you're called Nuomi. Do you remember anything else?"
How she had died, for instance, or when. Questions like that could not be asked outright. It would seem far too rude.
Nuomi scratched her head. "It's strange. All my memories from before are gone. I only have memories from two years ago. I remember that at the start I drove off the ghost who originally lived in the old dormitory building, and moved in myself."
Zhou You: "..."
No wonder she had reacted that way when he suggested she move out. So she had done this before!
A little embarrassed under Zhou You's stare, Nuomi explained sheepishly, "My head wasn't very clear back then. All I could think about was finding a place to stay. And... and the other one struck first. I remember it was called something like the Zhenyue Ghost King."
Zhou You thought it over. "Do all ghosts lack memories from when they were alive?"
"I don't know. This is my first time dying. I have no experience."
Zhou You had never died, so he had even less.
No experience was fine. Wasn't there an empress right beside him?
"Xiaoyao, Nuomi says she has no memories from before she died. Is that normal?"
Chu Xiaoyao quietly drew a breath through her teeth. This was a blind spot in her knowledge. Making something up would not be easy either. Invent it now, and the next time they met another ghost she might easily give herself away.
Chu Xiaoyao did not want to admit to Zhou You that, although she was the Carefree Empress, she had lost her memory. That would make this empress of hers look rather incompetent.
"Hard to say," she said after a moment's thought.
"Hard to say?" Zhou You had not expected an answer like that.
"The Six Paths of Reincarnation on the Hongmeng Continent were established later. Figures such as the Lord of the Hungry Ghost Path, the Sovereign of the Yellow Springs, and the Asura King joined hands to construct the Six Paths of Reincarnation and hold sway over the order of life and death."
"But what the rules of life and death are like in our world isn't clear. It's uncertain whether Nuomi's lack of memories from life is due to the rules, or whether some accident occurred."
Zhou You nodded. He felt Chu Xiaoyao's explanation made sense.
Listening off to the side, Nuomi was secretly alarmed. Six Paths of Reincarnation, the order of life and death, and someone like the Lord of the Hungry Ghost Path, who sounded terribly impressive—she could not understand what they were talking about, but it sounded very high-end.
Were these things that two people with no cultivation could even be discussing?
Seeing that he would get no answer from Chu Xiaoyao, Zhou You motioned for Nuomi to go on with her story.
"After that I ran into a Daoist from who knows where. The moment we met, she threw glutinous rice at me. I thought she was being kind and feeding me something to eat. Only later did I learn it was for driving ghosts off!"
"A Daoist? Did the school invite one?" Zhou You was puzzled. He had never seen a Daoist at school. Still, it would make sense if the school had invited a Daoist to the old dormitory building to drive out evil.
"That rotten Daoist was wearing a school uniform. She ought to be a student at your school. I went looking for her later and couldn't find her. No idea where she's hiding."
"She'd better not let me run into her again, or I'll show her!" Nuomi swung her fists with gleeful hehe-hahas, still unable to let go of what had happened to her two years ago.
Chapter 5